hours? they haven't been doing anything near as important as what we've been doing. i thank all of you so much for participating and stay in touch. if we've got your email address you will never be lonely because we're going to get you back here next year. thank you all so much. (applause).

>> well good evening everyone. [speaking spanish] >> and thank you for coming tonight to celebrate the accomplishments of the latino community here in soon fran. >> welcome to the celebration here at city hall. >> i am mr. tores and director of neighborhood services. >> and i am ms. linqarga and work for the resource center. [applause] before we continue let's have

another round for applause for dr. loco and the music provided. [applause] >> and tonight once the celebration and ceremony is over we hope you enjoy from refreshments and drinks with us. we have so much to celebrate tonight. >> and so many honorees to celebrate and are you true partners in making san francisco the best city in america in 2012. [applause] >> our theme for tonight's celebration is "community unity" because it's because of the collective efforts of the honorees across the diverse fields that bind us together. >> as we talk about about your

programs and the media brings hope what means most to the community. we're we honor your success to san francisco or your distribution to the small businesses or the community or the youth or bringing the diversity to us through intricate sound. >> whether we inspire us in the community and bringing safety and respect to the most vulnerable among us. >> we salute all of our honorees tonight that bring pride and diggity to the san francisco latino community and let's give them all a round of applause to what they bring to our city of san francisco. [applause] >> so we know that every great city needs a equally great leader and our first presenter tonight is exactly that. he

recognizes the importance of the strength that diversity brings to a city and the people who live in it. >> he's a former advocate of affordable housing and rights of immigrants and renters at his time at the law caucus. after 20 years for the government as investigator for the whistle blower program and director of city purchasing department of public works and city administrator prior to his appointment and election as the city's first chinese american mayor and first asian elected to the office and please join us welcoming our mayor edward m lee. [applause] >> wow thank you very much. good evening everyone. well, it's my pleasure to be here with you tonight and to participate in the recognition and honor of

our great leaders from the latino community, and i tell you there are so much construction that our latino community is providing the city in every way possible, the arts, law enforcement, restorative justice, all of the different services in the city, so i am excited to be here tonight and it's my personal pleasure to be joined here to have our democratic leader nancy pelosi also join in this community celebration. [applause] while we all know that latino heritage month is particularly importance to us in our city. it's the time when we can celebrate the independence and the self determination of numerous central american and south american nations where so many of our residents come from and where our immigrant population came from. there

are two important characteristics of the california latino community that we all know, but it's worth repeating. it is one of the fastest growing populations in our state. that's a fact and it's a very young population. good for young age. well, you know the latino heart and soul of our city is represented through those of you here tonight in attendance and through our 2012 distinguished honorees that represent the diverse latino populations in san francisco. from your accomplishments in business, big and small, to the joy in entertainment that you provide us through your artistic accomplishments, and from your pursuit for social and restorative justice through community service, your essential coverage in the media, your commitment to education and to health and assures every one

of us reaches the true heights of our potential, and lastly to the innovators constantly looking for new ways to make our lives efficient and making sure everyone has access to information. we are humbled by all of your service, and all of us share a common vision that is really focused our family and youth in our city. just this past summer i had the privilege of working with leader pelosi to take up president obama's call to create as many summer jobs as we could possibly create for our youth. leader pelosi we thank you for standing with us to assure the commitment of the corporate partners to invest in our youth. earlier this summer i was happy to sit down with the secretary of labor and announce we surpassed our goal and over

5,000 jobs for our kids in san francisco. [applause] that was a result of city agencies working with corporate and private partners and together we got that done, and we all know the quality of work experience for a young person can be a real bridge to a life line so thank you all for your work. and i also am proud of the work that we do in our communities with our community partners such as our mission economic development agency, the school district, the many city agencies that accomplish the promised neighborhood grant that we won from the department of education and we will need leader pelosi's to get awarded the funds to implement that plan too, yes. and we hope to hear good news after your next trip to washington dc along with

other good news speaker pelosi. [applause] well, we make a promise to build a better future for our latino youth and their families through the mission promised neighborhoods, and another way we can make sure we build a better future for the youth and familys is to make sure our government has the representation that our communities deserve. i have had the pleasure of appointing many latino leaders to our key government and i am proud to have elected and appointed the best choices that i know of for district five and that is christina olague, the supervisor for district five, and then you saw recently when city college was running into problems and they had their accreditation challenged and i looked again to the latino community and i picked mr. santos to help us

with the city college. i know quality education is important and two of the youth commissioners i had a chance to appoint and paul rodriquez and ramone gomez thank you very much for being here and working hard with our youth commission. [applause] and then later this summer i had a chance to appoint the city's first latino poet layer ret for san francisco. alhand dro mergia. your words continue to inspire us and i know the service and the representation is important to all of our commissions from the latino community where we're serving on the entertainment commission, the public works commission, the arts commission, and the mta commission and in our office at economic and work force development you know i launched

a new program as your mayor this year. i wanted to make sure every neighborhood had a chance to share in the growing economy so we established the invest in neighborhoods program, and again who do i look forward to lead my programs in all of the communities? well tonight i want you to know that joaquin tores is heading up the program for the whole city, another great talent. [applause] and you know he has served as the director of neighborhood services for some time and he has gained a significant understanding of all of the neighborhoods. that's why i picked him. that's where the money is going by the way, and of course as he is leaving the neighborhood services who do i pick? who do i go for? well,

christina paloan will be the next director of services. christina thank you very much for stepping up. [applause] as you all know too i have been struggling for this summer for the gun violence in our city, looking again for answers. it cannot just be our police department. we have to do more, and as you recall i wrestled with this whole concept of stop and frisk and many members of the latino members in the community came up officially and personally and you convinced he it's not the right way to go, but there is a right way to go, and we created a program to interrupt a patterns of violence out there, to help the police with predictive policing and using statistics, and the most important part is organizing our

communities, and with that i look again to our latino leadership, and i have picked deanna oroche to head the mission and thank you for stepping up. that is just an example of the depth of talent that we have in our latino community. they're already serving as the da. you're serving as so many parts, our three one one director, our library an, treasurer, our city attorney, so they're critical significant positions that our city is always represented through the latino community and i just want to add more of that talent as we celebrate 2012 latino heritage month and with they would like to invite and introduce someone who has been hard at work for all of us, who

understands latino community, asian community, african-american community, the san francisco community, and our values. someone who has fought for over 25 years for all of us. please welcome the next speaker of the house leader nancy pelosi. [applause] >> thank you very much mr. mayor for your kind introduction. your nice words of recognition how we worked together and for calling all of us together and a real cause for celebration, latino heritage month. we are very proud of your leadership in recognizing the excellence in the community to take leading roles in the administration of this under your leadership the

best city in america. where did you go? the best city in america. [applause] our district attorney, to you, counsel general, to you, and all of the leadership in the room and thank you for your leadership in making this event such a special one. it takes place in the context of a year when president barack obama recognized the leadership of the community by giving the presidential medal of freedom, the highest award given in the country to dolores for her leadership. [applause] and it was just last week that many of us gathered in the mission to have a at home celebration there and at that time we exchanged complements as to who could say the best

things about the community, but the best thing i can say about the community is that your commitment to family values, to education, to the work ethic, to a sense of community, to faith, and to family for all of that, to the courage of many of your ancestors our immediate families to come to america and make the future better for your families with that optism, with that hope, with that determination you make america or american so i thank you latino community for your patriotism. [applause] i was very proud in the house of representatives we passed the dream act to recognize -- [applause] -- as you know it was blocked in the senate but i am so proud that our president by executive

action was able to sustain deportations and the dreamers could reach their aspirations and again making america more america and i am proud that the president went yesterday to california to dedicate the cesar chavez national monument. many of us worked in colleagues in the congress to support the foundation that built the monument but he by executive order declared it a national monument and i am glad that check alieo and his son and some members of the community were there. such a big turnout they had to turn people away and such a great source of pride.

aren't we proud of that? [applause] and aren't we proud of our president. some of these things -- the passage of the dream act, support for the monument for series series and so many things mentioned by the great mayor were only possible of the leadership in our congress of the hispanic caucus. and i am pleased to say in this election year we have the opportunity and i think we will send ten more members to congress to be part of the congress and that's an increase of about 50% of the caucus and four of them will be from california, so we're very, very proud that california leads the way. as the mayor talked about the contribution it's easy to understand that our beauty -- i always say the beauty is in the mix . the strength of the

city, our state and our country is in our diversity and the recognition of that and the leadership and by appointment, by election, by executive order, by whatever it takes to fully engage the talent, the aspirations, and the determination of this community is a great thing for america and we're all very, very proud of that, and i am particularly proud today because i had been asked to give a special award. i would like to congratulate all of the honorees and thank you for what you do for our community and our country. i have the honor to join the mayor in honoring you with the dolores juata with the lifetime achievement award. [applause]

as chuck ik makes his way up here this is not only an official honor mr. mayor but a personal pleasure because chuck and his wife bernice were two of my earliest supporters 25 years ago when i first ran for congress. they had one of the first parties for me, a house party, a neighborhood party. we have been working together ever since so my daughter christine and their daughter bella we continue this multi-generational relationship. chuck's work as founder of the central latino to san francisco has done nothing less than give people a sense of worth and dignity. it has grown to giving meals to seniors as a full community center for 2300 multi-ethic seniors and families. when the white house had the conference on aging i

urged them to listen to grass root activists in the community, and one of the people i asked them to listen to was my appointee to the conference chuck iayala and an advocate for seniors nationwide. [applause] okay. in the tradition of the great dolores jaurta and a living legend in our country chuck makes his voice heard from city hall -- mr. mayor you know that, to the white house to neighborhoods to the whole country and when a former president was threatening to privatize social security he organized the community and made his voice heard and prevented turning social security into a privatized gamble for our

seniors. we all owe him a great debt of gratitude for saving that pillar of economic security. [applause] and he's doing that now with medicare, with medicare. i mentioned that dolores received the presidential medal of freedom and that day president obama recounted one of her mantras. she is always saying "don't wait to be invited. step in there". does that sound like her? throughout his life whenever he sees a challenge or need chuck has stepped in there. he has not waited to be invited and appropriate that we award him with this award and in doing so i am pleased to be joining our great mayor -- aren't we proud of our mayor? it's wonderful to have him as mayor of san francisco?

[applause] when you listen to his resume you wonder for how such a young man he fit in all those accomplishments but it works well for our city and we are very proud and the mayor and i join together in thanking chuck for decades of community and national leadership congratulating him on today's and him and all of today's awardees and their excellence in media and health and arts and business, education, community, and innovation as the mayor said earlier e expanding security and every other aspect of a safe and vibrant community, and those that are being honored for the after thes thank you -- for all of you thank you for what you do. it is our special privilege though to thank and award you this chuck.

[applause] >> leader pelosi and chuck iyala -- [applause] you know chuck i have known you for quite some years, and you know you've taken up the helm of leadership for so many years, but you did something that leader pelosi talked about, the president talked about, and you listened to creme -- democratic

convention and talked about it across the country. when we retain these positions the important thing that we can do is keep the door open for new leadership and in i symbolic gesture i would like all four latino representatives from the youth commission. please all of you step forward and join chuck so we can present latino heritage celebration day in san francisco. old and new the doors are open for everyone to lead and participate. [applause]

>> if at this time if i could have all the honorees join us on stage for a picture with leader pelosi and mayor lee. [applause] please come up. richard carranza, jenny florez. jaime maldonado, louis. all of the honorees please come to the stage. our leaders from spark america. [applause]

[applause] by the way for those of you that want to continue celebrating latino heritage month in a very celebratory way the giants just won. [applause] [cheers and applause]

>> thank you to all honorees. if you take a seat we will begin with the rest of the formal program. thank you mayor lee. thank you leader pelosi. for joining us here today and go giants. [applause] >> woo ! don't you love when we're all together. so we're going to try to get through the

program quickly, so now we're going to move on to the next stage of our presentation tonight and we're going to be presenting our first award. we like to invite the newly appointed trustee of city college in san francisco louis santos to the stage. [applause] our latina heritage education award this year goes to the new superintendent of the san francisco school district. ms. carranza. [applause] . ritual carranza was sworn in as the new superintendent of the district on june 27 of this year. richard held a position of director of instruction and social justice